Golfer Lee Trevino said, "Pressure is playing a five dollar Nassau with two dollars in your pocket."
Sport helps us transcend the ordinary, to seize opportunity and become somebody. Our basketball emotions run from euphoria to despair.
Spencer Haywood had a tryout at the University of Detroit. The coach offered a scholarship if he sank fifteen consecutive free throws. The rest is history.
This airport custodian became a Hall of Famer.
The former janitor "cleaned up" the boards and is tied at fourteenth in NBA history with five NBA titles with the Detroit Pistons and the Chicago Bulls.
His maternal grandfather was executed during Armenian genocide. This Hall of Fame coach (2013) began as a California high school coach before moving on to junior college and Long Beach State.
Legend has it that UCLA Coach John Wooden refused to schedule this coach's teams during the regular season. At the peak of the UCLA dynasty, his club lost to the Bruins in the 1971 West Regional final by two...after leading at halftime by twelve. He was offered the Lakers' job, but declined when he returned to Las Vegas and found his agent bound and shot in the trunk of a car. His UNLV teams went to four NCAA Final Fours and won the 1990 championship. Jerry Tarkanian was known for his teams' aggressive defense, the Amoeba defense, and his battles with the NCAA.
At the 1972 Olympics, Doug Collins said the last song he heard coming out of the locker room was What Becomes of the Brokenhearted? Later, Collins made a pair of free throws before a devastating ending and a 51-50 US loss.
During the peak of the Cold War, that foreshadowed the controversial US defeat by the Soviet Union, where referees allowed the winners multiple final second chances to win. The US team, to this day, refused to accept the silver medals. Several team members have clauses in their wills that descendants will never accept the medals.
In his autobiography, this immigrant writes that administrators told the women's team in 1985 that they would get the best woman coach they could find. Players asked why they couldn't get the best coach? Since then his teams have won almost 500 conference games, over 1000 games, and 11 national titles. He literally has burn scars from sleeping too close to the fire as a child in Northern Italy.
I've profiled some UCONN sets against Texas (2018) here. "The core beliefs that they have, have never changed." The talent and Geno Auriemma's coaching staff make UCONN a formidable team every year.
Lagniappe: via @BBallImmersion
Horns ball screen into screen-the-screener action...(pick and pick and pop)This action is usually run from a traditional Horns set up. Here it is moved off the top and a 2 side is created on the weak side. Great play design from Andy Enfield & USC basketball. pic.twitter.com/I079GS7lIX— Chris Oliver (@BBallImmersion) February 8, 2019